. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.

Hats off to Iowa City Councilor Jim Throgmorton for thinking, speaking and voting rationally regarding his colleagues’ generous $1.75 million gift of your money and mine to a Colorado corporation. (It’s the second such gift to the Sycamore Mall, after the first proved, once again, that TIFs very often don’t deliver on their backers’ expectations.)

For 41 previous columns and blog essays detailing a dozen categories of reasons why transferring taxpayers’ money to the bottom line of private citizens’ for-profit businesses is bad for taxpayers, consumers, competitors of the recipients, the general economy, neighboring communities and governments, see “TIFs: Links to Blog Essays,” http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2014/03/tifs-links-to-blog-essays.html.

“Councilor Jim Throgmorton ... voiced his concerns during the meeting about whether TIF money should be used for the project. ‘One normally thinks of a TIF as an incentive. I’m not yet persuaded that the owners need support from the city to take actions that are already in their own economic self-interest.’ ”

His judgment is supported, in another TIF district, by two of those bidding for the former St. Patrick Church property. They’re also able to profit within a pure capitalist system, with no need for taxpayers’ money.

Given our councilors’ untreated addiction to TIFs, and their repeated refusals even to acknowledge the harms, they leave voters with no other option than to oppose their re-election.

One is reminded of the story of the father who, when told that his son and friends were nearly killed in a drunk driving accident responded, "Oh, thank goodness they weren't using drugs."

Alcohol is, by almost every measure, far and away our nation's number one hard drug. It is involved in roughly half of all sexual assaults and other violent crimes, a problem for roughly half of all our prison population, the cause of billions of dollars in losses to businesses and taxpayers, with an adverse impact on millions of children, other family members, and fellow employees.

The
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports in its "Alcohol Facts and Statistics" that 56% of Americans over 18 reported consuming alcohol during the past month, and 25% reported binge drinking (the source of 75% of the $223 billion annual loss from alcohol misuse, including 40% of aggressive incidents, 22% of police time, and 13% of employee sick days). The third leading preventable causes of death are alcohol-related (6% of all global deaths, or 3.3 million persons; 40% of traffic-related deaths). Alcohol has been identified as a risk factor for cancers of the mouth, esophagus, pharynx, larynx, liver, and breast. Those affected by others' alcohol misuse include millions of family members and fellow workers; 10% of children live with a parent with alcohol problems.

As those of us associated with universities and colleges know, alcohol creates special problems for students. For example, among those 18-22 years old, 60% of college students, but only 52% of those not in college, drank alcohol during the past month. (Binge drinking is reported by 40% and 35% respectively.) [Photo credit: Nicholas Johnson.]

Researchers estimate that each year: 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor-vehicle crashes; 696,000 students are assaulted by a drunken student, including 97,000 students who report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. About 1 in 4 report academic consequences from drinking, including missing class, falling behind in class, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall.

The Iowa agency reports our alcohol consumption in gallons: 74,910,545 gallons of beer, 5,019,618 gallons of hard liquor, and 4,382,755 gallons of wine. Since it also reports there are 2,178,145 Iowans of legal drinking age (over 21), that means our per capita consumption per year (in gallons) is 34.39 gallons of beer, 2.30 of hard liquor, and 2.01 of wine. [Photo credit: lionsdenu.com.]

Since most of us don't even drink water a gallon at a time, let lone alcohol, here it is in "standard drinks" consumed annually by each of us (on average): 366 bottles of beer, 196 shots of 80-proof liquor, and 51 glasses of wine. (Johnson County, with 93,581 legal drinkers is consuming 250 shots a year per capita, and is probably substantially above the state average for beer as well, especially if the illegal consumption by students could be counted.)

What should one conclude from these numbers? It's hard to say. There are skirmishes around the drinking age -- whether it should be 21 or 18 -- but there is no longer any pressure for prohibition. The stats indicate that we're consuming a lot of alcohol (certainly by my personal standards), especially when one considers that roughly one-third of all Americans don't drink at all. And we're suffering our share of the consequences in violence, prison and hospital admissions, economic losses, and other aspects of a boozing lifestyle. On the other hand, Iowa is 23rd among all the 50 states in per capital consumption -- for any who find the comparison comforting.

Nonetheless, for a state that's having difficulty even approving medical marijuana, let alone substituting treatment for prison for all recreational drug use, it's long past time we treated alcohol as the nation's number one hard drug that it is. We can do better -- for our health, for our young people, and for our taxpayers.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Introduction: Because of the recent attention to net neutrality by the Federal Communications Commission and President Obama, I have received requests for explanations from a number of individuals. Given Vanessa Miller's excellent interview and explanations, I am taking the liberty of reproducing here her story from The Gazette of November 12, 2014, as it appeared online two days earlier. The story is copyright by The Gazette, and will be taken down if the paper requests. Information about subscribing to The Gazette can be found here.

Net neutrality garnered national attention this week after President Barack Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to adopt strict regulation over consumer broadband Internet.

But the topic long has been on the mind of University of Iowa law professor Nicholas Johnson.

Having served as a commissioner for the FCC from 1966 to 1973 — followed by stints as a presidential adviser for the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services and head of a Washington-based media reform group — Johnson said he for years has held the position Obama espoused Monday.

“I have always felt it ought to be essentially controlled by Title II” of the Communications Act, Johnson told The Gazette on Tuesday.

Obama’s proposal urges the FCC to reclassify Internet service providers, like Comcast and Verizon, under Title II to give the commission power to prohibit them from blocking or slowing content and playing favorites with content providers.

The approach requires thinking about wired and wireless broadband service as a public utility, and Johnson said that’s how it should be. Ideally, he said, content and conduit would be totally separate — like the former AT&T network.

“Anyone who wants a phone gets a phone, everybody pays the same amount, and it’s not heavily subsidized,” Johnson said. “Once you got a telephone, you could say anything you wanted. That’s not saying you couldn’t break the law … but AT&T wasn’t going to get involved.”

That was a good model, according to Johnson, and it’s one that should be replicated for cable and Internet access. The Internet should be fair game for anyone to use any way they please, he said, and carriers shouldn’t be allowed to block, slow content, or prioritize service for those with the most money — offering faster Internet to providers willing to pay.

“They can’t say to Netflix and Amazon, we are going with just one of you, and it’s open bidding, and whoever pays the most to deliver the information in a timely way wins,” Johnson said. “We’ll just block the other one.”

That, he said, “would be really unfortunate.”

“Because the Internet holds so much promise for everybody,” Johnson said.

From entertainment and education to entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations, it offers an easy way to share information.

“There is no limit to what it can be,” Johnson said. “But the problem with turning some stuff entirely over to capitalism, with no regulation, is that it doesn’t best serve the public.”

From the global perspective, Johnson said, some countries have regulations that enable Internet speeds 10 times what Americans have at a much lower cost.

“We are really lagging behind the world as a result of turning the pricing and bandwidth decision over to these companies,” Johnson said.

The business of regulating monopolies or quasi-monopolies dates back to the late 1800s with a group of Iowa farmers upset about railroads playing favorites, according to Johnson. Those principals have been applied to other necessary services over time — like water, electricity and natural gas.

“They are regulated in a variety of ways, and one way is that they cannot play favorites,” Johnson said. “They have to provide service to everyone and charge the same rates.”

Part of the debate around Internet regulation is whether it’s considered a necessity.

“The question is, has the Internet taken on enough of those qualities,” Johnson said.

The FCC’s previous net neutrality rules were struck down by a federal appeals court in January, and the commission in May released a new proposal that would maintain light regulation. Obama on Monday said that proposal doesn’t go far enough.

Obama’s suggestions for the commission, an independent agency that doesn’t answer to the president, were praised by online content providers, like Netflix, but denounced by Internet providers, like Comcast, as being heavy-handed and likely to kill online investment and innovation.

Johnson said that although he’s in line with Obama, there is an issue with the president intervening with “such a heavy hand.” Before Johnson joined the FCC, he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to be the U.S. Maritime Administrator.

After he started on the commission, Johnson said, his communication with the president stopped.

“He respected that independence,” Johnson said.

Although Obama this week made clear he understands the separation of powers, Johnson said Obama also made it clear that he’d like the FCC to “decide it my way.”

As to whether the commission will, Johnson said, “It’s hard to predict.”

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Introduction: Given that (a) those addicted to various substances or behaviors seem to benefit from 12-step programs, (b) the seeming addiction to war of many of our politicians, and (c) their disinclination to read or otherwise undertake anything that will take a lot of time, I have cut their work in half by offering this six-step program for treating their war addiction.

Six Step Program for Avoiding War
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 11, 2014, p. A7

It’s too late to challenge President Obama’s recent doubling of U.S. troops in Iraq.

But it may be the right time to rethink America’s approach to war.

The Pew Research Center’s Andrew Kohut reports “the public feels little responsibility and inclination to deal with international problems that are not seen as direct threats to the national interest.”

Yet too many of our Washington politicians are like the small boy with a hammer who thinks everything he encounters needs pounding. Spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined, war becomes their first, rather than last, resort.

This approach to foreign policy consumes trillions of taxpayers’ dollars, billions in rebuilding costs, creates millions of homeless refugees, kills hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, wounds and kills thousands of American soldiers, and decreases our national security by increasing Islamic State’s recruitment of angry terrorists from 80 countries.

America won World War II in four years. Our current wars last three times as long with nothing yet approaching “Mission Accomplished.”

The computer in the 1983 movie War Games, in its countdown to “Global Thermonuclear War,” finally concludes that, like tic-tac-toe, “The only winning move is not to play.”

Can’t we learn, in a dozen years, what that computer figured out in a dozen seconds? The best, and sometimes only, way to win a war is to avoid it.

Here’s a six step program for doing that.

Citizen Involvement. Consider a draft, and other World War II-style citizen sacrifice. It’s not only a winning strategy; increased citizen involvement is a more democratic strategy. Potential Viet Nam War draftees were the backbone of that war’s citizen protest. After 9/11, we were told to “go shopping.” Today less than 1 percent of us fight wars about which the rest of us know little and care less, compared with the 16 million who went into WWII.

Pay-As-You-Go. Stop putting the cost of wars on a credit card left to our grandchildren. A supplementary war tax would focus citizen and congressional attention on the financial realities of war, while reducing national debt.

Accountability. Make every senator and congressperson cast a recorded vote, yes or no, before starting or escalating wars — as our constitution envisioned.

UN Force. When our national interests aren’t involved, shift responsibility for humanitarian military interventions to a United Nations rapid deployment force.

Discussion.Authorization for the human genome project mandated review of its ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI). War involves more than military considerations. It deserves mass media giving voice to America’s best independent minds, and public discussion of the ethical, legal, social, cultural, economic, medical, international relations and many other issues raised by war.

Check list. There are also military issues. Military leaders, more than politicians, wisely insist on answers before committing troops. We should, too.

What’s the problem, or challenge? What’s our goal? Is it sufficiently important, clearly defined, and understood? Why will military force contribute to, rather than impede, its accomplishment? What possibly more effective non-military alternatives are there?

What are the benefits and costs, gains and losses, risks and rewards? What will it require in troops, materiel, lives, and treasure? How long will it take? Are the American people and their congress supportive? How about the local population where we’ll be fighting? Do we know their language, culture, history, tribal and social structure? What are the metrics for evaluating if we’re “successful”? What, then, is our exit strategy? After we leave, will things be better than now, the same, or become progressively worse?

Sometimes, regretfully, war may be the only choice. But the thesis of this six-step program is that, if we were to follow it, we would be less likely to leap into ill-considered, unwinnable, counterproductive military actions, and more likely to succeed in those that cannot be avoided.
_______________
As U.S. Maritime Administrator, Nicholas Johnson was involved in providing sealift for the Vietnam War.

I'm about to give away the ending to the 1983 movie, "War Games." So if you haven't seen it during the past 31 years, but still have it on your list, you might want to skip this introduction.

The story involves the introduction -- and then the removal -- of human infallibility in a system for launching nuclear missiles. The solution is to "take the humans out of the loop," substituting a supercomputer which, once it has been fed all relevant available data and run it through various war game scenarios, will make the final decision to launch. The computer is called "WOPR," for "War Operation Plan Response."

A young, 1980s computer geek with no evil intent, using techniques similar to those I used 'round about that time, connects with it, thinking it to be a repository of video games. Stymied when a password is required, I would stop; he does not, and his research ultimately uncovers the "backdoor" password. Like many mainframes at the time, it contains a list of simple, conventional games -- such as tic-tac-toe and chess. But it also has the serious war game scenarios. Ultimately, our young fellow decides to play "Global Thermonuclear War" and the countdown begins.

When WOPR starts breaking the launch codes on the ICBM missiles the young man, now at NORAD Headquarters surrounded by some very anxious military officers, gets WOPR to play tic-tac-toe, hoping the computer will thereby learn the principle of unwinnable games -- which it does, just in the nick of time.

WOPR speaks: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

-- Computer's conclusion about the war game "Global Thermonuclear War," from movie "War Games" (1983).

We Need Military Might and the Willingness to Use It

Especially given that introduction, it is important to make clear from the outset what this blog essay, this six step program, is not advocating.

It is not advocating that the United States abolish the Department of Defense, withdraw from the world, and hope for the best. The use of military force is sometimes the only realistic option. And to be prepared to bring about a satisfactory end to such actions requires human and other resources both suitable and adequate for the task.

This raises questions regarding the amount and cost of adequate preparedness -- whether, for example, our security requires we spend more on military preparedness than the rest of the world combined -- but the answers to those questions are outside the scope of this essay.

However, We Also Need to Do a Better Job of Evaluating When to Use Military Force

The U.S. got in, and out, of World War II in four years. It has more recently spent a dozen or more years supporting American troops in 150 countries, including fighting five seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. The cost is variously estimated at some $3 trillion dollars, especially when those estimates include the often-lifetime of medical costs for wounded veterans, and the rebuilding of nations we have helped to destroy. Thousands of American military lives have been lost, hundreds of thousands of civilians, and there is significant evidence that our presence has only increased the recruiting of terrorists.

The President has said our country should not do "stupid stuff." But some of these military operations have been "stupid stuff" -- notwithstanding the military's willingness to follow orders with professional skill and discipline.

The thesis of this essay is that our national security could be provided more economically, efficiently, and effectively if we were to follow some procedures that have been successfully used in the past, are grounded in our Constitution, laws, and history, and have been advocated by well educated and experienced military leaders.

The fact that these proposals have precedent and rational basis does not mean they are not controversial -- especially among those who benefit financially from Defense Department contracts, or are ideologically committed to war as a first, rather than a last resort, and support the idea of so-called "preemptive wars," or other arguably unnecessary military operations.

Executive Summary

We begin with a summary of the six steps, following which each will receive more detail and explanation.

(1) Sacrifice. During World War II virtually every American made a sacrifice of some kind toward fighting that war -- men, women, young children and seniors. That's not only a winning strategy, it's also a democratic strategy that increases popular support for the effort.

(2) Payment. There was wartime debt during World War II, but income taxes plus the sale of "war bonds" meant there was proportionally less war-related debt than now. The cost of the war was not simply put on a credit card and left to grandchildren and future generations. Nor can we finance a war with tax cuts for the wealthy -- however popular the effort may be with politicians' major donors.

(3) Authorization. The Constitution provides that "The Congress shall have power . . . to declare War . . .." (Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 11). Congress has acted, in the form of the War Powers Resolution, 50 U.S.C. Sec. 1541, et seq, that provides, among other things, that any president-initiated military action must be halted after 60 days if the Congress has not approved it. (There can also be what is called a congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).) This third step is simply the proposal that these requirements be followed with greater formality, requiring every member of Congress to cast a vote, yes or no.

(4) UN Force. Every effort should be made to create a United Nations Rapid Deployment Force with sufficient equipment and personnel to deal effectively with genocide, displaced persons, and other human rights violations when military action is required and authorized under the UN Charter -- rather than making the only realistic options either doing nothing, or unilateral intervention by the United States.

(5) Broad Discussion. Once military action is contemplated, the focus of our media, government and public discussions seems to narrow to military considerations, such as "boots on the ground" (or not), high-tech aircraft and other equipment, damage from our bombing runs, and strategic and tactical considerations. It would help slow and sharpen our approach if we would bring to bear a full range of academic and others' informed analysis of considerations other than military -- both before war, and as an evaluation after a war of lessons learned. Analogies for this approach might be environmental impact statements, or the authorization for the human genome project requiring an ongoing review of the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) it raises.

(6) Check List. The "law of the instrument," first expressed by Abraham Kaplan, is "Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding." So it is with military power. That some challenges can be successfully resolved with military force does not mean that all can be. In addition to the broad discussion, there is a shorter checklist of considerations and questions before going to war, sometimes called "the Powell doctrine."

It is the thesis of this six step program that, if we were to follow it, we would be less likely to leap into ill-considered, counter productive military actions, and more likely to succeed in those that cannot be avoided.

_______________

Feeling burned by Iraq and Afghanistan and burdened by domestic concerns, the public feels little responsibility and inclination to deal with international problems that are not seen as direct threats to the national interest.

Many Americans in and out of government, holding diverse political and ideological positions, are concerned about our current military adventure in Iraq and Syria –- not to mention the American soldiers stationed in an additional 150 countries.

There are very serious constitutional and other legal issues regarding the President’s authority to conduct these military efforts -- however those questions ultimately may be resolved by scholars, legislators, and judges.

It’s true of our current adventures involving the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Does the President have the legal authority? With mounting domestic needs, should we be spending more trillions abroad? Is our presence increasing, rather than decreasing, the recruitment of terrorists and the likelihood of attacks on our homeland? Is there any end in sight? Even from a military perspective, how can we “degrade and destroy” an enemy on the ground with planes in the air?

Above all, what is our process for going to war? What should it be? How can a public, skeptical about the wisdom of more wars, insure that military adventures will only be undertaken as a very last resort?

Few if any of us would want to forbid any wars ever, regardless of the circumstance. Nor would we want to tie the hands of the President or Congress, for example, by requiring a referendum in which a majority of American voters approve each military response to a genuine threat to our national security.

But there may be more that we can do to slow what often appears to be a knee-jerk shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach to international challenges.

(1) Sacrifice.

Among those inclined to war as a first resort, the primary lesson learned from our Viet Nam adventure is that drafting unwilling young men and women for battle tends to create popular opposition to war.

The story is told of the farmer who bought a mule from his neighbor, having been assured that the mule was obedient and would respond to spoken commands. When the buyer discovered this was not the case, he called his neighbor who drove over in his pickup truck. When the buyer told the mule to move forward, left, and right, and got no response, the seller fetched a two-by-four from the back of his truck and proceeded to give the mule a sharp blow to the head. The mule then did what the seller told him. He explained to the buyer, "You see, he'll do what you tell him, it's just that first you have to get his attention."

A draft gets the public's attention; a war fought with volunteers does not.

During World War II everyone sacrificed. The 1940 population was 132 million; of that number 16 million went to war. Today, with a population of 320 million, 2 million have served in Afghanistan or Iraq -- less than one percent. During World War II those at home worked at building weapons of war, served in hospitals, lived with rationed (or unavailable) food, fuel and other products formerly available in abundance. Children were recruited for recycling efforts, and asked to buy war bonds -- one dime at a time. After the 9/11 attacks no one was forced to go to war, nor was there an imposition of any sacrifice on those remaining at home. Indeed, rather than rationing, President George Bush suggested the most appropriate citizen response to the attacks was that we "go shopping."

When there is no obvious cost of war, those citizens who are not apathetic can be caught up in the government propaganda and media drumbeat in support of war. And when citizens don't care, neither do their elected representatives. If war is to be taken seriously, thought about deeply before it is undertaken, and reviewed in detail after it is concluded, imposing some sacrifice -- through a draft or other forms of compulsory service -- can be a way of getting the public's attention, the kind of useful brake on precipitous action a true democracy requires.

(2) The Powell Doctrine

The use of force should be restricted to occasions where it can do some good and where the good will outweigh the loss of lives and other costs that will surely ensue.

-- General Colin Powell

* What is the problem or challenge believed to require U.S. attention?

* What, specifically, is the goal to be achieved?

* Is that objective important, clearly defined and understood?

* Have all other non-military alternatives been tried and failed?

* What are the reasons for believing military force will contribute to, rather than impede, the accomplishment of the objective?

* What are the benefits and costs of military action, the gains and losses, risks and rewards?

* What will it require in troops, materiel, lives and treasure to achieve the objective?

* How long will it take to attain the objective?

* Are the American people and their Congress prepared to provide and sustain those resources and pay those costs during that time?

* How will we know if we are ever “successful” in attaining our objective?

* What, then, will be our exit strategy?

* When we leave will the situation we leave behind be better than when we arrived, about the same, or worse?

* Will that situation be consistent with our original mission?

_______________

Might have to reconsider imposing a draft.
A pay-as-you-go progressive war tax to cover all costs.
Require mandatory Congressional approval and deadlines (War Powers Act) whenever new war, or war expanded to an additional country or terrorist organization, or mission creep from “training” to “combat.”
Organized national discussion among individuals from range of disciplines. At least a public discussion -- if not a unanimous, or majority, vote approving, the proposed military action -- by a group of the nation’s leaders from a range of academic and professional disciplines from anthropology to zoology. History and culture of the region. Outside party to review war; hard to do within government.
Before and after war require compulsory, satisfactory written answers to the half-dozen or so questions in “the Powell Doctrine” from the Administration and Congress.
At least consultation, if not required approval, by representatives of other countries (e.g., some unit of the United Nations).
Availability of significant United Nations rapid deployment force.

Nothing posted on this blog is intended as, constitutes, nor should be taken to be, "legal advice," nor as creating an attorney-client relationship.

Personal View

This blog is neither affiliated with the University of Iowa nor hosted by it. It is maintained by Nicholas Johnson in his individual capacity. Nothing posted here should be construed as anything other than the personal views of the author.